


Lost in Coffee Rings and Fingerprints

by apocryphalia



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Don't @ Me, F/F, Femslash, Gods, M/M, Magic, Vampires, Vignette, also regular slash, fantasy medieval, magically-assisted gender transitions, slight blood kink, the author has no idea what is happening, this is basically just a bunch of weird ficlets with possibly something resembling a plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:34:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23669221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocryphalia/pseuds/apocryphalia
Summary: There is an odd sense of constancy surrounding Aziraphale, as if he is eternal, unchanging, a fixed point in time. (He can’t be. Crowley can smell the blood running beneath his skin, can hear the heartbeat hammering between his ribs. There is no stench of death or divinity on the man. Only salt and dirt, leather and ale. The scent of human skin.)Anthony J. Crowley is a wanderer with secrets to keep. He meets a mysterious and oddly familiar stranger in a bar one night, suddenly changing the course of his (after)life.[Warning: this is likely to be updated eventually, but the author is currently on a writing hiatus due to... 2020.]
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 9





	Lost in Coffee Rings and Fingerprints

**Author's Note:**

> Literally, there is no reason for anything in this fic. My subconscious is driving this train, not me. Enjoy the journey with me, if you like.

_Can’t you tell? I’m not myself_  
_I’m a slow motion accident_  
_Lost in coffee rings and fingerprints_  
_I don’t wanna feel anything, but I do_  
_And it all comes back to you_  
—Frou Frou, “Hear Me Out”

1348.

Curious eyes follow Anthony J. Crowley from every corner of the room as he enters a dingy tavern near the university. Clothed in fine, dark silks, with pale skin and striking golden eyes, he gives the impression that he has stepped out of another world. He steps up to the counter and slides a coin to the barkeep with long, white fingers, then turns to survey the room, leaning on the bar in a way that suggests his spine might contain more than the usual number of vertebrae. Eyes slide bashfully away from his gaze and slowly, the low hum of conversation starts up once more.

One set of eyes remains focused on him, pale blue-green and glowing in the firelight. It belongs to a stout man with a shock of white-blond hair, seated alone at a table in the far corner of the room. Crowley meets those eyes with his own, and still the man does not look away, but continues watching him with an expression of polite curiosity. The tavern keeper slides a mug across the counter toward Crowley, who takes it without a second glance and makes his way across the room toward the other man’s table.

“Hello,” Crowley says, sliding into the seat across from him without waiting for permission. He sprawls across the bench sideways, one sharp elbow resting on the tabletop.

“Hello,” the man replies, the twinkle of amusement in his eyes betraying his bland smile. “New in town, are you? I’m certain I’d remember seeing a man of your… stature in a place like this.”

“Just passing through,” Crowley says vaguely, extending a hand across the table. “Anthony Crowley.”

“Aziraphale.”

Crowley arches an eyebrow, but says nothing. “Nice to meet you, Aziraphale.”

“And you, Anthony Crowley.”

“Just Crowley is fine.” He hesitates for a moment, watching the other man over the rim of his cup. “You didn’t look away.”

“I’m sorry?”

“When I walked in. Everyone looked at me, and when I looked back, they looked away. Most people seem unsettled by me. You’re not.”

“No, I suppose not.” Aziraphale shrugs. “Should I be?”

Crowley nearly chokes on his ale. He stares across the table at Aziraphale, fumbling for an answer. There’s something achingly familiar in those eyes, still looking fearlessly into his own, the shifting green-blue-gray of a storm at sea. (He had once known a similar pair well. He had known the precise texture of sun-bleached hair, the shape of delicate fingers on his skin, and the curve of a well-loved body beneath his own. But that had been a long time ago.)

“Probably,” Crowley answers at last. “But there’s no need to be.” He says the last part to the dregs of his ale, ashamed of its truth.

Aziraphale watches him for another moment. Crowley’s words hang between them, fragile as spider’s silk. Then Aziraphale stands abruptly, and his heart skips a beat. “I need another drink,” the man says, and nods to the mug in Crowley’s white-knuckled fist. “Another?”

Crowley nods. He watches Aziraphale round the table and head toward the bar, considering the confidence in his gait, the steady motion of his legs beneath their leather breeches, and his modest white tunic. There is an odd sense of constancy surrounding Aziraphale, as if he is eternal, unchanging, a fixed point in time. (He can’t be. Crowley can smell the blood running beneath his skin, can hear the heartbeat hammering between his ribs. There is no stench of death or divinity on the man. Only salt and dirt, leather and ale. The scent of human skin.)

Crowley’s thoughts are interrupted by the scrape of a fresh pint across the wooden tabletop. Aziraphale sits down across from him once more, straight-spined and perfectly poised. His square fingers wrap neatly around his own mug. A smudge of ink lies forgotten along the edge of one fingernail.

They drink. Sometimes in silence—strangely companionable, that painful familiarity still tugging at some corner of Crowley’s mind—sometimes over cautious conversation. They size each other up, speaking in tongues and half-understood doublespeak. Crowley learns that Aziraphale is a scholar of some sort, and Aziraphale learns only that Crowley is a traveler, passing through town on his way from nowhere. They part in the early hours of the morning, and Crowley sleeps with the sunrise.

  


* * *

  


When darkness covers the town once more, Crowley makes his way to the university library. His idle curiosity about the man from the tavern has solidified into something already verging on obsession. He expects to find the library empty, and hopes to find some clue to who Aziraphale is and where he came from. Instead, as he slips through the heavy wooden doors and between shelves of leather-bound manuscripts and aging scrolls, he is suddenly confronted with the man himself.

Aziraphale is seated at a long table, surrounded by sheets of parchment and pots of ink. A single torch pinned to the wall behind him barely illuminates his work. Crowley pauses for a moment, unseen among the stacks, and watches the fluid motion of the pen clutched between Aziraphale’s thick fingers. He is deep in concentration, tongue clutched between his teeth, with just the tip poking out between his lips.

Crowley waits until Aziraphale finishes the swirling decoration of an ornate letter and moves to refill his pen, then steps out of the shadows. “Aziraphale! Hello,” he says, as though just seeing him for the first time.

“Oh—Crowley, hello. You startled me. What are you doing here?”

“Just, er, looking for a book. What are _you_ doing here?”

“I _work_ here.”

Crowley cocks an eyebrow. “This late?”

Aziraphale shrugs. “I like it at night. It’s quiet. No one interrupts me… usually.”

Crowley chooses to ignore this comment and sits down at the table, opposite Aziraphale. “What are you working on?” he asks, peering curiously at the manuscripts laid out across the wood. The characters on the parchment are foreign to him.

Aziraphale considers him for a moment, watching the way Crowley’s eyes rove across the table aimlessly. “It’s an important magical text,” he answers finally. “We have the last known complete copy here, so I’m creating another.”

“Magic,” Crowley repeats. “So then, can you…?”

“Oh, no. Well, maybe just a bit.” Aziraphale’s eyes light up as he digs in the coin purse at his waist. He pulls something out of it and reaches toward Crowley, who tenses unconsciously, but does not move away. His golden eyes follow Aziraphale’s hand curiously as it reaches past him, and then he pulls it back, clutching a shining silver piece. His face breaks out into a ridiculous, wide open grin. There’s something infuriatingly endearing about it.

Crowley stares at him for a long moment. “I just watched you take that out of your purse,” he says. “That was the worst sleight of hand I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s magic!” Aziraphale insists. “It’s fun.”

“Oh, my gods.” Crowley shakes his head, buried in his hands. “It’s humiliating. _I’m_ humiliated. You’re sitting over a real magical text, doing… that?”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale sniffs, sitting straighter in his chair. “Speaking of which, I should get back to work. And I suppose you should… what was it you came here for, exactly?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Crowley moves to get up from the table, feeling strangely empty in the face of Aziraphale’s dismissal.

“Er, Crowley…” When he turns to look back at Aziraphale, a faint pink flush has appeared in his cheeks. Crowley nearly writes it off as a trick of the light, but he can hear the man’s heartbeat speed up. He raises an eyebrow and waits. “I don’t know how long you’re here in town, but I don’t suppose you’d like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Dinner?” Crowley repeats dumbly. He swears he can feel his own disused heart creak back into life and begin beating out a panicked rhythm.

“Well, yes. Dinner. Just… that.”

“Er. Sure.”

Aziraphale’s relief is palpable, and the smile that breaks out on his face burns like the sun. Crowley nearly has to look away from it. “Wonderful! I’ll see you tomorrow then, dear boy.”

Crowley merely nods before stumbling back the way he came, between the dark shelves and through the library doors into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell with me at [Tumblr](http://apocryphalia.tumblr.com) and/or [Twitter](http://twitter.com/apocryphalia), if you like.


End file.
